A video conferencing end-point that is equipped with an Embedded Multi-point Conferencing Unit (EMCU), referred to as an EMCU end-point, is capable of providing a multi-point video conference for several video conferencing end-points. Organizations that deploy small video conferencing networks tend to choose an EMCU end-point because of the relatively low cost involved and the simplicity of its deployment. For example, one or more EMCU end-points can be quickly purchased (e.g., without an extensive budget) and readily deployed at the early stages of building a video conferencing network.
As the video conferencing network grows, however, the EMCU end-points cannot provide the scalability and capacity that are required for deploying medium and/or large scale video conferencing networks. For example, an EMCU end-point can be limited in the number of video conferencing end-points that the EMCU end-point can support in a video conference. The number of video stream layouts and the number of different bit-rates that the EMCU end-point can support can also be limited.
Several solutions have been proposed in the past to address such shortcomings. For example, a network-based multi-point conferencing system that can include existing EMCU end-points has been proposed. Such conferencing systems, however, can be much more costly. Moreover, such proposed systems have under utilized the capacity of the existing EMCU end-points. For example, previously proposed conferencing systems have not fully utilized the functionalities that the existing EMCU end-points are designed to perform, such as video processing, thereby relegating the existing EMCU end-points to the limited role of video conferencing end-points.